To Mix Songs

Tips for mixing songs

I have some basic and seemingly trivial compared to the mix of a song I want to share with you that are mostly missed by beginners.

Reverb and delay

Personally, I think it's important to keep his song a little "wet." By wet I mean to apply a little reverb and delay to the tracks – yes, even drum tracks! Note into account, can be a real challenge to find a compromise between wet and dry. Of course not too dry – the listener has to note that there are some reverb or delay, but rather a subconscious level. I note here that I'm talking about the humidity in general and not drilling delays to be used for a single, such as "No No No" by Deep Purple, or a dose of reverb at the end of the verse highlighting a voice as that found in "School" by Supertramp or excessive use, but beautiful reverb as the only "stupid" by Deep Purple as well.

Since the individual instruments and their elements respond differently to one and the same reverb and also not all instruments require the same "moisture", most of which must choose a reverberation specifically for each instrument. Naturally, it is desirable to "swim" reverb tracks, except to say that to do so.

Normally, battery (especially the trap because it is so shocking) require only a little reverb and short term. I'd recommend to even a little "detours" to you can get a soft sound impression. Elements of drilling consisting mainly of high frequencies and decay rapidly as the snare that its reverberation stand out more than such a kick or an accident. The hype does not have these frequencies penetrating an accident has a very slow decay, which both makes the reverb just perceptible.

Especially guitars and vocals brighter reverbs require otherwise, tend to make what I call "vague contours. It is up to you to choose the right reverberation time and to determine its appropriate share, but mainly with rock guitars prefer a delay due to the saturated sound tends to lose some 'punch' in combination with excessive reverberation.

In my experience, synthesizers, organs, keyboards and reverb tolerate without beginning to sound sharp.

Critical frequency bands

A big mistake I've often done in the past was to emphasize Low in the mid frequencies. You probably know that the mids and especially the lower mids are responsible for an impression of a warm sound. The problem often had was to create my sounds individually until they sounded great in itself, but only without the rest of the tracks. And if you set all the sounds separately, you'll probably find that each instrument sounds full and balanced, but thorough mixing of a sudden everything starts to sound very fuzzy and blurry.

There is a trick to make correctly. What kind of have to consider your entire song as an instrument to balance properly – I know it can be very hard, all because you have to analyze and configure each track in an appropriate proportion to others. Since I wanted every single instrument to sound warm and full almost every time you add a certain amount of midrange frequencies lower than average (in the range of 200 to 500 Hz – which is the critical point). Unfortunately, these frequencies if accumulated thus tend to make the sound of the song 'strong' and the type of fill completely with the no gloss.

I made experience it is advisable to carry a certain amount of these frequencies, especially with the guitar, vocals and synth tracks, and instead of adding these at low guitars and bass drums.

In no way would like to take this completely, but will be surprised how balanced and complete all instruments only sounds in the general point of view by reducing specific frequencies and change of mean low.

One more thing: He had previously been using loudspeakers used to emphasize the upper mids and lows. Using nonlinear speakers can be a big problem with the mixture of songs – then I thought all my teachers were great and brilliant rebounds, but when I heard through speakers sounded linear bounces "as dry as a bone." The last key songs surveillance is firstly a great sound through speakers and second linear through nonlinear, perhaps even of poor quality.

Taking an external view

There are some things that no one is too involved in the domain of a song can make mistakes.

It can be a big mistake, for example, trying to make all the instruments sound equally loud – it does not really work. Well, not really functional and it is possible to make all tracks sound equally loud, but probably not what you're really looking for. I tried this myself and had to realize that it may create more difficulties than would solve the problems. The big problem is that the listener does not know which elements of this approach and makes listening quite taxing. Instead, create a mixture it makes perfect sense to the listener and can only be "abandoned" without focus.

The key is as it were assigned a leadership role to a group instruments in particular and then to highlight some elements of this group. As soon as you have chosen a group of "playing the lead role, in that is exactly the same important also decide which particular element of the group will perform the lead role here. With drums that always put the drum and bass in the foreground, with the voice that is likely to choose the main voice and reduce the volume of others, and say that with two guitars that would keep the guitar or else there is none, which is higher or lower frequencies. It is exactly the same as the golden section in the paint.

If you're thinking now: "If good, but now my other instruments are a kind of drowned in the crowd, "I can assure you – will not pass an often underestimated how well they come across instruments of silence in a mix of cleverly matched if ..

One more advice of rock songs: If you want your song to sound powerful, put drums in the foreground (atonal instruments often require more volume than you might expect). Then the voices and one of his guitars (if any) and then the guitar along with bass. At least for a long time I underestimated the amount of drums actually contribute to a more powerful sound impression.

Y more psychological advice: Do not let the graphics to influence his mind and judgment. I know sometimes wanders a little sound my perception, so often hid my software interface for monitoring, or just open a window track mixer in order to fully focus on the acoustic impression.

My brother and I recorded the song brilliant "White Room" Cream and record a video, too. For the soundtrack of video that we took our study recording, put a "Space Designer" in the departure runway, and adapted to the acoustic reverberation of the room in which they were shooting the video in. If you want to know how it sounds without "over-apply" the reverb level, click Linus And Dino "White Room"!

(C) Linus Schachten 2010 (Hamburg, Germany). All rights reserved.

About the Author

Local Vocal – 90′s Dance acapella medley mix

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